Luxury carmaker Mercedes Benz India on Thursday said it has delivered the thousandth car with Retail of the Future (ROTF) business model, where it sells cars directly to the customers. Launched in October this year, the company has invested INR 60 crore for this initiative.
India is the fourth market to roll out ROTF, after South Africa, Sweden and Austria. With this new business model, the company owns the entire stock of cars, sells them via appointed franchise partners, invoice the new cars to the customers directly, process the order and complete them.
Martin Schwenk, managing director & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, said, “Delivering the thousandth Mercedes-Benz within a short span under the ROTF platform strongly validates our vision of reimagining customer excellence while empowering the franchise partners financially with this new business model.” “It is equally satisfying to have the unconditional support of our franchise partners, their teams and our colleagues at MB India, who adapted seamlessly to this completely new business model enabling us to deliver 1000 cars already,” he said.
The company also said it is providing price protection to customers who have booked their cars and are waiting for MY 21 cars. “Customers who book a select range of cars comprising the A-Class, GLA, and EClass until 31st December 2021, will be offered price protection.
Mercedes-Benz has also extended the price protection to those customers who have booked the GLE 400 & GLE 400d SUVs, and have been waiting since April to get the delivery of their Three Pointed Star, as a token of appreciation for their long wait.,” said the company. However, to offset the costs for such feature enhancements amidst rising inputs costs, Mercedes-Benz will revise the ex-showroom price of only select models. The price revision ranging up to 2% will be effective from January 1, 2022, it said.
